


War

by KarkaHatchlings



Series: Guild Wars 2 Interstitial [6]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Conversations, Gen, Magic, Necromancy, Sieges, Slice of Life, Speculation, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 15:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarkaHatchlings/pseuds/KarkaHatchlings
Summary: A skirmish occurs in the Mistwar.





	War

Unable to find prey and already starting to deliquesce, the squalling minion tottered on a few more steps before collapsing into a puddle of its own stinking juices.  Mippa wrinkled her pink nose, but it was more at the mess than the smell. It couldn’t be called much worse than the gore clogging the rest of the courtyard in the battle’s wake.

“Don’t make a face,” growled Balrit, the charr suddenly very close.  Startled, Mippa covered her reaction by folding arms arms tightly and looking down the steps where workers and mercenaries alike were hurriedly trying to repair the gate.  Above the battered oak portal, Biwt sat, bow across her lap, legs kicking idly as she watched. “You create those on purpose, after all.”

“They’ll be back soon,” another voice barked, this one clear and brassy, used to shouting.  Chalice hopped down from the battlement steps, brightly-polished platemail gleaming under torchlight.  She’d been checking on the arrow cart emplacement; her quick return probably meant it wasn’t salvageable. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

“Of course,” the charr mock-grumbled, the scolding rolling off his back, “after all, if any of you survive being kicked out of here, you’ll need a way back in.”

Then, spoken low, almost menacingly to the asura, “stay safe, little girl.”  Balrit swept his robes around with a flourish before slinking away to find a hiding place.  As he walked, he fastidiously stepped over and around the bodies the invaders had left behind in the retreat.

“And you,” Chalice jabbed a metal-clad finger at Mippa, “is your own escape planned?”

“That way,” the asura began in an annoyed sing-song, nodding her head at the battlement opposite the gate, “over the top, all the way down.  I’ll survive.” Her voice was smug; a protective caul of necromantic energies would protect her from an otherwise fatal impact. It was a long way from the top of the curtain wall to the base of the cliff it was built upon.

“Then, I meet up with the rest of you, or if you’re dead, with Pleek, the human, and the militia for the counterattack.”

“Good,” the much taller human replied perfunctorily, already watching the repair progress again, “then start helping instead of playing with your toys.”  Punctuating her statement, Garbrech shambled by from the tower’s supply dump, two massive timbers balanced on his shoulders. Mippa felt the courtyard tremble when the wooden stays hit the ground and the norn levered them up to brace the gate.

“Which ones are these, anyway?” Mippa asked, curious, gesturing at a body crumpled in a heap nearby.  The sylvari was riddled with arrows but the killing blows were deep axe cuts to his thighs and stomach.  Someone had driven a banner into the ground next to his body, a grim exultation at the kill.

“Does it even matter?  They’re here, trying to tap the Mists, and we want all that for ourselves,” Chalice shrugged.  “They’re all pains in the ass to me.” On the wall, Biwt snorted, then looked away, ashamed of enjoying the crude humor.

“There are theories under debate at the colleges they’re from other versions of Tyria, you know,” Mippa was incredulous at the lack of interest.

“So?” the human rounded on her, “unless I bump into myself and get a real challenge out here, I don’t care.”

A loud squawk split the air and a pitch shape stooped from the night sky beyond the walls.  In the narrow approach to the tower between wall and cliffside, a scream and a roar of anger echoed in answer.  “Ass pains incoming!” called Biwt, passing along the warning from her raven. She hopped to her feet in a smooth motion, heedless of the edge of the battlement, and laid an arrow to her bow before peering out into the dark.  “There are more of them this time.”

“Alright!” Chalice’s voice rang in the courtyard, “then they’re not defending their fortress in the heights!  We hold them here, and the militia takes that. Keep at that gate, if they get in, it’ll still be an uneven trade for them, but we’ll most likely be dead.”  A ragged shout of assent went up from the defenders as they hurried to the rapidly diminishing stockpile of supplies in a last-ditch effort to shore up the entrance.

“Defenses!” called the woman, and Mippa could see the sylvari hurl sparkling magical traps down from the battlement in front of the gate.  Biwt knelt, bow pointed to the sky as she launched arrow after arrow up into an arc that would blanket the approaching warband. Then, she was out of sight as the asura dashed up to the gate.  Hearing the first shouts of pain, she rapped her staff hard against the ground then inscribed a mark in the air with it. Curls of shadow bled from the rune she’d drawn, spilling out of nothing with a sound like an angry sigh, and she began to work on another.

Almost immediately, the inscription burst into momentary light as the invaders crashed against the gate.  Her work was rewarded by panicked shrieks, and Mippa felt herself buoyed by the carnage, catching tiny motes of escaping life force as someone bled out on the other side.  The shivery ecstasy of it was cut short by another warning called down from above. “They’re moving a ram into place!”

Towering over the asura, Garbrech pressed his back against the gate, legs planted immobile and tree-like, his example followed by more of the mercenaries.  Even so they were bounced forward as the timbers crunched and bowed under the ram’s first impact. Noxious green fumes spilled through the gaps in the heavy door, wreathing the norn’s thick legs, leaving etched patterns of tarnish on the metal.  One of the mercenaries near him, a human, gagged and collapsed, trying to crawl away from the burning chemicals. 

“Get up!  Get up!” squeaked Mippa, drawing another inscription on the surface of the gate.  Someone tripped it instantly, frost crackling in a massive splash over the wooden surface.   Inanely, she cursed how stupid her voice must sound in the cacophony of battle. Her encouragement was in counterpoint to the new outburst of pain and fear from the unseen invaders, and the fallen mercenary dragged himself to his feet, staggering away to the relative safety of the courtyard.  Relative only: a catapult stone from an emplacement set up somewhere behind the assault sailed over the wall, bowling him from his feet and leaving him writhing and broken.

Garbrech stepped away from the gate suddenly, hefting his axes, and the asura knew it was almost over.  If he thought the gate was lost... Before she could complete the thought, the next blow of the ram sent half of the thick beams off their hinges, spilling invaders into the courtyard.  They surged at the norn, the first wave a dozen strong, shouting enraged warcries, eager to exact vengeance for being bled at the gate. Mippa could understand them clearly, though their accents were unplaceably strange, just a tiny bit off.

Grabbing the horn tucked in her belt, she blew with all her strength, a cloud of locusts emerging from the instrument to pull at her clothes and bear her away from the fight.  The norn’s blades flashed, cleaving through the first of the invaders before he too was rolling away from the fight with surprising alacrity, headed for a battlement to leap clear just as she was.  Arrows chased them both madly, Mippa glad for the first time in her life her ears were rather small as the deadly bolts sang past.

Hurried, short-legged steps carried her up to the top of the wall and she teetered there for a moment, glancing back but unable to tell if any of the others had escaped.  As she leapt, she could see a beam of light pierce the heavens suddenly in the distant heights: the keep there falling into the hands of friendly militia and sending the power of the Mists back to her own shard of reality.  The air whistling around her muted to an eerie silence, hidden behind the stolen lives of others for a moment while the ground rushed up to meet her harmlessly. They’d held long enough but she still had to link up with the others.  The war wasn’t over.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in /gw2g/.
> 
> Events referenced here correspond to in-game events: Tower siege in World vs. World. At the time this was written, the Necromancer class Death Shroud mechanic rendered a character immune to falling damage.


End file.
